From Katherine May’s Wintering pg 13
Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible
From pg 25:
But here it is: my winter. It’s an open invitation to transition into a more sustainable life and to wrest back control over the chaos I’ve created. It’s a moment when I have to step into solitude, and into contemplation. It’s also a moment when I have to walk away from old alliances, to let the strings of some friendships fall loose, if only for a while. It’s a path I’ve walked over and over again in my life, perhaps. I have learned how to winter the hard way. It’s a skill set of sorts

